Last Night's Run - I See Promise

Can the Warriors get Gerald Wallace?
Before I get to last night's game, there was an article written yesterday that put a twinkle in Warriors fans' eyes.

The Sporting Blog talked about a potential trade which would net the Warriors Gerald Wallace and get rid of Al Harrington. Too good to be true? Probably.

Wallace would thrive in Oakland and give me a national holiday, while opening up PT for Brandan Wright. Al Harrington is kind of a bum, but he's also a 6'9" jump-shooter, which means on some basic level he'd fit with D'Antoni. And that buzz has been there for a minute.

But then not too soon thereafter, Tim Kawakami broke my heart worse than Hulk Hogan.

There’s a temporary–and perhaps serious–wrench in Al Harrington trade speculation:

His agent, Dan Fegan, says that Harrington has been nursing a back injury since late last month and that Harrington is scheduled for an MRI later today.

I'm still slobbering myself at the idea that we could get Gerald Wallace. But I won't believe it until I see it.

Warriors lose to the Grizzlies again
Rarely would I ever be in a good mood after the Warriors lost twice to the Memphis Grizzlies in one week. But after last night's ball game, while I was disappointed that they couldn't pull it out, I liked what I saw. They are still a Monta Ellis away from really competing at any decent level, but there was some young talent on that court last night. Brandan Wright, Anthony Randolph, and Andris Biedrins give the Warriors a long set of legs and arms to seemingly challenge any shot on defense, and dunk back any miss on offense. And though I've stated before that I'm not the biggest Jack fan when it comes to him controlling the offense and being the money guy, no one plays harder. While you cringe when he takes the "I have a dream" three pointer, you give him the benefit of the doubt because he plays so hard, guards the best perimeter player, and owns up to his mistakes.

We didn't play hard enough. Down the stretch I am the leader of the team, so I've got to be smarter and can't give up a wide open three to their best player at the end of the game.

They still have this logjam of odd guards trying to find time on the court. DeMarcus Nelson fits much better as a swingman coming off the bench for defensive purposes. CJ Watson looks like a decent back up point guard who can come in and spot up for jumpers. I'm not sure what Marcus Williams is quite yet, but at least Nellie let him on the floor.

If we can't get someone like Wallace, I'm not opposed to trying to bring in a starting point guard in a trade for Harrington. I actually like Ellis better as a two guard and it would allow Corey Maggette to come off the bench, where I think he'd excel.

More from last night
Devin Harris spoils AI's Detroit debut.
But Chauncey's homecoming goes a lot better.
The Hawks are 4-0. Where's Dominique Wilkins?
The Bobcats upset the Hornets. J-Rich and Raymond Felton each go for 20.

Last Night's Run - The Rims Get Small

The Warriors can't shoot
It was one of those games. But it wasn't supposed to be one of those games. It was supposed to be high scoring, up and down, not fundamental, and wild and crazy. But it was none of those things. It was one of those games. It was one of those games where the home team plays a bit harder than the other, even if there were tons of fans dressed like seats in the arena. It was one of those games where one team simply couldn't make an outside shot so instead of taking things to the bucket and getting closer, they just kept shooting outside shots. Because you know, the percentages should even out right? How's this for shooting?

Bad Shooter	FGM	FGA
S. Jackson	6	21
C. Maggette	4	16
A. Harrington	3	15
T. Hardaway	0	17

I know, Timmy didn't play tonight even though if he did, it would've been an improvement. But the reason I put Timmy there is because if you remember that game, the Warriors still won even though Timmy couldn't find the broad side of the barn. Why? Because he was only one player. Chris Mullin was able to bail him out and the Warriors won. Here, when you have three guys who feel the need to chuck up shots without much success, it's detrimental to the team. At least Andris Biedrins came to play as he scored 14 and pulled 22 boards. Also, we had an Anthony Randolph sighting for one minute.



Marc Gasol, Pau's angry little brother, was the only player for Memphis to really play well, at least offensively. He went for 27 and 16 and looked smooth and rough at the same time, if that makes any sense.

OJ Mayo and Rudy Gay both went 6-13 shooting and neither got to the free throw line so Gay still leads Mayo by a large margin in shots taken.

I almost forgot. The Grizz won 90-79.

More on Iverson for Billups
Kelly Dwyer from Ball Don't Lie has a really good recap of why this trade is much better for Denver than Detroit.

Detroit's taking another chance, and though there's the possibility the team might whiff in free agency, it hardly matters. They've cleared cap space and developed even more options. If nothing happens this summer, then they can run the kids for a year before trying to clamp down on the 2010 free agent market. After all, only Tayshaun Prince ($11.1 million), Jason Maxiell (reportedly about $5 million), and the backcourt tandem of Stuckey and Aaron Afflalo (combined to make $4.7 million) will be on the books that summer.

Nobody, not even Joe Dumars or Iverson himself, will be able to anticipate what sort of impact his presence will have on this year's Pistons team. AI's game is that unique. But given the far-reaching implications of what this deal could do for Detroit, again, it hardly matters in the long run.

Geoff Lepper says that Denver might've received some short term cap relief, it won't help that much in the long run.

The Nuggets save some $8 million in the short term; Billups ($11.1 million) and McDyess ($6.8) represent more than $4 million in savings over Iverson's cost ($21.9 million), which is doubled because the Nuggets are — even with this cost-cutting move - slated to go several million over this season's luxury-tax threshold of $71.15 million.

The deal could get even sweeter if the team is able to negotiate a favorable buyout with McDyess, who reportedly won’t play anywhere but Detroit.

But unlike Iverson and his soon-to-expire deal, Billups is on the books for another $25.2 million in '09-'10 and '10-'11 combined (there's also a player option for $14.2 million in '11-'12) and McDyess - unless a buyout is reached - will pull down $6.8 million next season.

So, in exchange for some short-term relief, the Nuggets have cast their lot with a 32-year-old point guard who has never led an up-tempo attack before in his life.

Tim Kawakami says that Denver got better, even if it doesn't make them a lot better.

The Nuggets aren't good enough to challenge in the West, but the Nuggets weren't going anywhere with AI and, in their spot, desperately needing new talent around Carmelo Anthony, it’s probably better to add Billups and his longer money than it is to let AI walk away next summer just to save some cash.

If I have this right, since the summer, Denver basically has traded Marcus Camby (given away a few months ago for cash purposes) and Iverson for Billups and McDyess plus some extra salary savings to use on Linas Kleiza's new deal and maybe some other things.

Again, nothing spectacular, but it's better than Denver sitting around and letting that roster atrophy and watching Carmelo get nasty and pretty soon he's ready to get the heck out.

Joe Dumars Isn't Messing Around

The word around sports websites today is that Allen Iverson is going to Detroit in a trade for Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess. Iverson is in the last year of his contract, and TrueHoop says that Joe Dumars' long term vision is to create cap space for next year when guys like Lebron James, Amare Stoudemire, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Ray Allen, Tyson Chandler, Manu Ginobili, Richard Jefferson, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Redd are going to be free agents.

After Detroit lost to the Boston Celtics in last year's Eastern Conference Finals, Dumars stated that he didn't have any "sacred cows" and then fired coach Flip Saunders less than a week after the series loss.

For Denver, I'm not sure if it makes them all that much better, but it does show that the Iverson/Carmelo Anthony experiment didn't really work. Billups is more of a true point guard and he's a more dependable three point shooter (39% to 31% career wise) but Iverson's overall shooting percentage is higher than Billups'.

Also, the word is that McDyess might choose retirement over going to Denver.

Photo by bronwyn and shared via creative commons